1) This could spur innovation in the cocktail world.
2) Glad I had the foresight to "squeeze & freeze" quite a bit of lime juice.
3) Glad I can grow my own limes, so no shortage or exorbitant high prices for me and my home bar! (Neener neener!)
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On point number 2, I think it's more likely to spur places to start using artificial lime juice if it goes on long enough.
_________________"You can't eat real Polynesian food. It's the most horrible junk I've ever tasted." —Trader Vic Bergeron

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Mexican restaurants in the United States are being squeezed by a sudden jump in the price of limes, an essential ingredient, which has led managers in places like San Antonio that are a hotbed for the cuisine to alter recipes.

"Mexico received some heavy rains that destroyed a large amount of the lime crop, so with limited supplies we are seeing lime prices skyrocket," Bryan Black, director of communications for the Texas Department of Agriculture, said on Thursday.

Texas like most U.S. states receives most of their limes from Mexico.

John Berry, who runs La Fonda, a prominent Mexican restaurant in San Antonio, said on Thursday the price he pays for a case of limes has jumped to nearly $100 from $14 last year.

"Real simple," Berry said. "We don't buy them. We substitute lemons."

Limes are used in guacamole and to garnish beers.

Serving a margarita without a lime garnish is burning at the heart of Louis Barrios, who runs the family-owned Mexican restaurant chain "Los Barrios." But he's doing without.

"Ninety nine percent of the time, people don't squeeze it into the margarita anyway," Barrios says.

A combination of factors has prompted the spike in lime prices. Most limes consumed in the United States come from the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Colima, and Guerrero, which have been hit by an unusual combination of cold weather and flooding, wholesalers said.

Shipments have also been disrupted by violence attributed to drug gangs, they said.

The high prices are not expected to end any time soon, according to wholesalers.

Between this post, and my seeing Costco being out a couple of times lately, the ironically sobering reality has hit me: I must take action! So Costco had a decent supply of limes this last trip, though the price has increased by 50% (from $6 to $9). I picked up three bags, to squeeze and freeze. I may have burned out my little home juicer doing all of these at once. Plus, they had lime trees there too! So for long term piece of mind, I picked one of those up too...The juice must flow!